


Something in the Water

by notaparty



Series: Something in the Water [1]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/M, origin fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 04:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaparty/pseuds/notaparty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Nell Little became Batgirl, as seen in Steph's Black Mercy induced dreams in Batgirl #24. When children in Gotham start mysteriously falling into comas, Steph starts to follow the case. But she didn't anticipate unforeseen circumstances taking her out of the field or Nell deciding to take the case into her own hands, with a surprising bit of help from Damian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set about nine-ish years after Steph's Batgirl run, which means that she's about 28 and Damian and Nell are around 19. Tim is 27, Cass is 30, and Dick and Babs are somewhere in their late-ish thirties.

I loved my job and all, but some days the clock moved in slow motion when I wanted it to fly by.

Today was one of those days and it was only nine in the morning.

Since Gotham City public schools had gotten out for the summer, the Wayne Foundation Youth Center had been a total madhouse from morning to dinner time. I had been at work for a grand total of thirty minutes and I’d already broken up a fight and gotten spat up on twice. The latter was definitely not helping this nausea I was experiencing in the slightest. 

I curled up in my desk chair and sipped at my ginger ale, wishing I could take more medicine without ripping a hole in my stomach lining. Was it terrible that I was worried about that because that meant I wouldn’t get to eat leftover wedding cake for Tim and I’s one year wedding anniversary? Not because, y’know, hole in stomach would likely mean death. The cake was that good.

“Stephanie?” My assistant, Nell popped her head into my office. “You have a visitor. Apparently he’s from the board or something?”

I paused, trying to remember my schedule, but my brain was totally fried from a late patrol the night before. I wondered how I’d gotten through college patrolling and taking classes, but then I remembered that I definitely sucked at doing both about 75% of the time. 

“Who now?”

“Damian Wayne?” She, unlike most other nineteen year old Gothamites, didn’t say his name with a swoon attached. This, among other things like her ability to manage a bunch of different things at once, further proved that Nell was basically superhuman. No one was resistant to Damian’s good looks—he even got to me sometimes and I was basically his older sister, which felt really gross the more I thought about it.

“Send him in.” I put my soda down and ran my hands through my hair. It was getting too long. “Can you take over my walkie-talkie until I get back? It won’t be that long. Maria’s on backup, but things seem to be under control. Just message her if you need help.”

“Yeah, definitely.” She came in and grabbed the walkie-talkie, putting it on her hip before she left. The antenna pushed up her t-shirt, revealing the Bat symbol tattoo she had on her side. I still couldn’t get over the fact that she was the same little girl who idolized Batgirl, and apparently was still a big fan of me. Well, secret me.

She mostly made me feel stupid old, but I probably should have been used to that by now. I mean, I had a retirement fund and everything, so why did kids growing up freak me out? Maybe it was how mature and put together she was—she had this job after being promoted from her volunteer position and had landed a full scholarship to Gotham University. On top of that, she’d graduated at the top of her class, was the captain of both the soccer and softball teams, and the president of her student body.

If I were her age, I couldn’t even be jealous of her because she was that awesome. She was that popular girl that no one hated because she was genuinely worthy of her popularity.

Damian came strolling in as Nell left, glancing behind him. Most guys his age slobbed around in jeans and a t-shirt, but Damian always looked like he was a model out of a magazine at all times—perfectly put together outfits, hair expertly cut and styled, reasonably tidy finger nails despite using his hands so much as Robin. Today he was wearing dark wash jeans and an untucked, subtly printed button down shirt, a new gigantic, but not super flashy gold watch on his wrist. 

“Your new assistant is…” He kept staring over his shoulder even though the door was closing. “…Competent.”

“Wow, a compliment right out of the gate? Are you feeling well?” I grinned. “What’s up, D?”

“You’re supposed to give me a tour, if you recall.” He raised an eyebrow, obviously not in the mood for jokes today. Not that he was a jokester all the time, but he’d loosened up quite a bit in the past years.

“Oh.” I took a second to sip my drink again before standing. “For the board, right?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes. They seem to think that being closer to a child’s age means having an interest in children, which is a ridiculous string of logic. I need to make sure no one’s dying of infected wounds and the like, then report back.”

I led him into the hallway, unsure if the ‘infected wounds’ part was a true diss or not. You could never tell with Damian. “What do you need to see?”

“Just take me around the places that get frequently used.”

“So, everything?” I started toward the outdoor play area, which was at the end of the hallway. “Here’s a start. This is where most of the kids hang out in the morning before it gets disgustingly hot.”

He followed me, his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t even looking around. “How long has that girl been your assistant?”

“Just a few weeks or so now. She’s been a volunteer here for two or so years, but she did such a good job that we hired her.” I glanced up at him. “Why?”

“Your past assistants have been so…” He paused. “…Overly accommodating.”

I snorted, pushing open the door. Warm air came rushing in, which somehow made me even queasier. “So she didn’t fall all over the place to please you and that bothers you?”

“It didn’t bother me.” He said this quietly, but before I could prod him more, he asked, “Are these structures actually safe for use?”

“Well, yeah. No one’s fallen and gotten hurt because the jungle gym didn’t hold up.” They were a bit old, though.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped out a few words. Judging from the furrow in his brow, he was not impressed. “Let’s move on.”

So, we did. We passed by the two-and-unders room, where the toddlers and babies were, then the quiet reading area and the tutoring booths. Damian took more notes, most of his comments semi-snarky, as was his custom. But at least there was a playfulness to it that he didn’t used to have because I wouldn’t have been able to take him being an ass about this place. It was too close to my heart.

“And finally, the gym.” I gestured to the door down the hall. “It’s in pretty good shape since we got the floors redone three years ago, so you probably won’t have to stay—“

“Move, please!” Nell shouted from behind us, shoving Damian aside to get to the gym. “Steph, need your help!”

Damian looked stunned, as did I, but the urgency in Nell’s voice told me to snap out of it and get in there. I followed and had to make my way through a crowd of kids to get to the problem. Nell was already administering CPR to the child who was passed out and blue on the floor. Maria, who was my second in command, was on the phone, presumably with 911. I kneeled next to the kid, feeling my stomach churn even more.

“What happened?” I asked Nell.

“He just went down…” She continued her compressions and checked if he was breathing. 

She kept giving CPR. The boy was new—I recognized his face from his file, but not his name. Ten years old, probably, brown hair, light brown skin under the sickly blue pallor it had taken on. He had on a Pokemon t-shirt and cargo shorts. The EMTs quickly arrived and took over for Nell, who immediately moved back. Maria jumped in the ambulance with him since he knew her and would probably want a familiar face when he woke up.

If he woke up.

I couldn’t linger over the thought much longer and gathered the kids to calm them down. I slipped into crisis mode, and after some calming words and hugs, kids went back to playing and hanging out somewhat somberly. Thankfully we also had an on-staff counselor thanks to an anonymous donor, so she was probably going to get a lot of drop-in visits.

No matter how much I saw on patrol, I still couldn’t handle sick or injured kids well after the fact. I was always left a bit stunned, wondering if what had just happened was real. I only came out of it minutes after the fact, and it felt like garbage.

“I take it that doesn’t happen regularly?” Damian asked quietly, startling me.

“No.” I twisted my wedding ring around on my finger, the sweat that had accumulated on my hands making it spin easily. “But you got everything you needed to get, right?”

“Yes.” He put his phone back into his pocket and looked around the gym for a moment. “Are you going to come out tonight?”

“It’s Tim and I’s anniversary, so probably not. Plus I need a little breather after today.” Plus Tim was still recovering from a stab wound to the shoulder that inhibited his movement and he was getting burnt out at work. So it would probably be fancy takeout, cake, and sex if we managed to stay awake after dinner. 

God, we were such old people. But then again, I guess that was better than a lot of the crap we’d been through together.

Damian made a face. Even after all this time, he still pretended that he hated Tim, but I could tell that he truly didn’t anymore. “I’ll walk myself out.”

I followed him anyway. Damian made good use of Bruce’s mostly-for-show car collection—today he was driving a black Bentley convertible. A few of his sketchbooks sat in the front seat, along with a pack of pens. 

Before he pulled off, he said, “Tell your assistant that I’m inviting her to the auction event this weekend.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really? Nell?”

“Yes, Nell. The tall black girl with curly hair in a ponytail. The one who brought me to your office.” He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “Is that a problem?”

“No, it’s just sudden for a girl you’ve seen for a total of five minutes.” I grinned. 

He shrugged. “I wanted to thank her for her help.”

“Again, for a total of five minutes?”

He rolled his eyes and put on his mirrored sunglasses.   “Quality over quantity.”

“Mmmhm.” He would have looked calm to anyone else, but I could see a little nervous twinge in his jaw and hands. _Interesting._ “Does someone have a cr—“

He pulled off abruptly. Damn sports cars.

I went back inside to my office to tackle some of the paperwork I needed to do and Nell was standing there at the reception desk, flipping through a file. She smiled wistfully when she saw me, so different than her usual bright grin.

“Still shaken up?” I asked, grabbing a Lifesaver from the dish on the desk.

“A bit. I hope he’s okay.” 

“I’ll keep you updated.” I turned to go into my office, but she made a little sound, like she was going to say something. “What was that?”

“I just…” She played with the Lifesaver wrapper. “I saw something when I was giving CPR.”

“What kind of ‘something’?”

“It was like something scuttled up his leg. Like electricity or something.” She bit on her thumbnail. “I thought I imagined it, but I saw it across his neck too.”

I paused, a sinking feeling growing in my stomach. Somehow I knew I would be talking to Babs about this—weird things didn’t happen in Gotham without it being something. Usually something bad. “Maybe he was twitching.”

She bit her nail a little longer. “Well, maybe.” 

“Unrelated,” I said, forcing myself to sound a little upbeat to get her mind off it, “but Damian wanted me to ask you if you wanted to go to this auction the Wayne Foundation’s having this Friday.”

She bit her bottom lip to stop herself, but she grinned anyway. “For real? Like the fancy party with billionaires? Black tie kind of thing?”

“Indeed. Dress to the nines, free delicious food.”

She paused. “It’s not everyday that I get invited to parties by gorgeous billionaires.”

“Hah! So you do think he’s gorgeous. I thought you were way too calm when you met him.”

“Well, I have eyes.” She grinned even wider. “What’s in the water over there at the Wayne manor? Bruce Wayne is hot in a rugged older dude way, then there’s Dick Grayson—can’t even deal with all of him at once, he just needs to put his beautiful everything away—and not to mention Tim in as non-weird of a way as possible.”

I had to smile. “Tim is hot, and I would say that even if I wasn’t married to him.”

“Definitely something in the water over there.” She took a Lifesaver from the dish on my desk and unwrapped it. “I’ll go to the party, then. I’ll get another use out of my prom dress.”

—

The rest of the day was thankfully like usual—exhausting, but without serious injuries. When I got home, Tim was face down on the couch, asleep, our cat Opie curled up like a little white loaf of bread on the arm rest above his head. He was still in his work clothes, shoes off and one leg dangling to the floor. I put my purse down a little loudly, gently stirring him awake. If I woke him up by touching him when he didn’t know I was there, he would probably freak out. He stirred, looking adorably confused.

“Happy anniversary, sleeping beauty,” I said, kissing the top of his head as he propped himself up on his elbows.

“Mmm, happy anniversary.” He rolled over onto his side, his dark hair sticking up on one side. “Did you just get home?”

“Yep.” I gave Opie a scratch under her chin while Tim sat up. “How was your day?”

He gave me a quick run down—apparently today was less stressful for him—and I gave mine. I told him about what Nell saw and he frowned.

“Are you going to tell Babs?” He asked.

“Yep. I’ll text her since I’m not going out on patrol tonight.” I walked toward the kitchen, taking in the beautiful view of Gotham that we had. We lived in a penthouse, and if you told me at age fifteen that I would a) be married to my boyfriend of the time, and b) that I would technically be a billionaire, I wouldn’t have believed it. 

“No patrol?” He followed me, Opie probably on his heels. She was especially attached to him even though he was the one who was reluctant to take her from a litter Damian rescued in the first place. 

“No, why? Anniversary and all.” I took the cake out of the fridge. “Plus I don’t feel great.”

“Still the same as the other day?” He leaned up against the counter. 

“Yeah.” I unwrapped the cake and cut us each a slice. “It’s not as bad now, so maybe it’s something I picked up from one of the kids. Or side effects from this stupid birth control patch.”

I’d gotten this new patch a month or two ago and all it had done was mess with my system. I knew I had to get used to it and all, but it still sucked. Some kind of bug from the kids was way more likely, considering how many noses I wiped and how often I got puked on.

“Maybe.” He took his cake and got out spoons. We each took a bite and chewed in silence. God, this cake was good. “I brought takeout too if you want legitimate food.”

“Yeah, sure.”

We finished our cake in comfortable silence and moved back to the living room to eat dinner in front of the TV. Eventually he started to slump into me, which then led to him snoring. I scooted over until his head was in my lap and stroked his hair. Opie climbed on the back of the couch and sat next to my head, quietly purring.

We needed more nights like this. Nothing beeping, no one getting hurt. Just sleep and cuddling and—

—And my phone started blaring with Babs’s ringtone. Of course. Tim woke up, but I pressed his head back into my lap as I answered the phone.

“Yep?”

“Are you going out tonight?” She asked. I heard her typing furiously in the background. 

“No, it’s Tim and I’s anniversary. Plus I’m still feeling pretty off.” I pulled Tim’s hair into a little pigtail on the side of his head. “Why? Do you need me?”

“Not really.” She paused, more typing. Definitely not a ’nothing really’ kind of pause.  “I’ll call Dinah or Cass, it’s no big deal. And happy anniversary, by the way.”

“Thanks.” I abruptly felt more nauseous. “Gotta go. I’ll call you later about something.”

“What is it?”

“Can’t talk.” I hung up and jumped up, making it to the bathroom before all of that delicious food came right back up. 

I wasn’t one for believing in bad omens, but somehow I had the feeling that wasn’t a good sign. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the kudos/comments on the last chapter! I wasn't expecting it to get so many hits. I've outlined the next few chapters in more detail so hopefully it won't take me as long to update as it did this time.

“Where is she?” Damian asked me, sounding mildly annoyed.

“Relax, D. She’s probably stuck behind all those limos and whatnot at the red carpet.” Which was totally gratuitous, I might add. Inflating already inflated egos by making random Gotham rich people seem famous was terrible, but it was a big hit, so the parties always had it. “Besides, the party’s barely started. The mayor’s wife hasn’t started drunkenly hitting on you yet.”

He rolled his eyes. “Someone should tell Nell to skip past the red carpet. It’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” I glanced around the party, which was just getting started. Multiple long tables had been set up for people to bid on items, including some of Damian’s paintings, which were covered until later in the night when things heated up a bit. The view of Gotham from up here was amazing, though I would have preferred being in my Batgirl suit rather than this cocktail dress that kept riding up my ass and clinging to my tummy. 

“You two look too tense for a party. What’s wrong?” Dick asked, walking up to us with a huge grin on his face. He was in his tux, looking even more handsome than he did when I first met him. Maybe it was the fact that he was going a little gray at the temples, but his hair was still thick as it had ever been. Or the tux. Or y’know, everything else about him. 

“Damian’s waiting for Nell to get here.” I tugged at my updo, which kept my hair off the back of my neck, but was weirdly itchy and poke-y. Some days I just wanted to shave my head instead of wrestling with my hair everyday, but I had the feeling I would regret it.

“Nell? Your assistant?” Dick looked a little confused. “Why?”

“I wanted to thank her for her help the other day, so I invited her.” Damian pulled on his tux sleeve a bit, like the suit was uncomfortable, even though it was custom made and probably cost more than three months’ rent on my first apartment.

“Mmhm.” Dick looked at me knowingly. He’d met Nell once and knew that she was super cute. 

“Oh, there she is,” I said, spotting her looking lovely but lost next to the entrance to the roof. “Nell!”

She made her way over, smiling. The red of her dress was vibrant and the cut was perfectly flattering. Had teenagers stepped up their prom dress game since I was in high school ten (ugh) years ago or was it just Nell? I hadn’t gone to prom, seeing that I was dead for my junior one and homeschooled for my senior one, but judging from the proms I’d witnessed back then, they were where fashion came to die. 

Damian was giving her the once over—not leering at her like some random creep on the street, but admiring her somewhat politely. For a guy who’d known her for less than twenty-four hours, he sure did seem to have it bad for her. Nell was totally and completely oblivious to that fact.

“Hi!” She looked bright-eyed. “This is so fancy. The guy tried to valet my mom’s car and everything. Thanks again for inviting me.”

“Glad you’re here,” Damian said, swooping to her side. “Would you like me to show you around? You can see a lot of great things from up here.”

Dick and I exchanged glances. Super smooth, Damian. Well, at least he was up-front about it, unlike most teenaged boys. Then again, being wealthy, charming (when you wanted to be), and very good looking made you pretty impervious to rejection. He’d learned that early on and didn’t play games with girls because of it.

“Um, sure. See you guys later, I guess.” She shot me a look, though thankfully she didn’t seem nervous or weirded out.

“Remind me how we survived him going through puberty,” Dick said once they were out of earshot, grabbing an iced tea from a passing waiter.

“A lot of luck and patience. Though the jury’s still out on whether we’ll survive early-20s-Damian. Being over the age of eighteen, extremely good looking, rich and hormonal doesn’t bode well for anyone.” I took an iced tea too. 

“He’ll be fine.” He gestured toward one of the tables. 

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because he’s a good kid at heart. Also I have the feeling your Momma Bear instincts go beyond protecting just Damian.” He sat, and I sat next to him. “You talk about Nell like you’re her older sister sometimes.”

I shrugged. “She’s great. I should probably keep it more professional, though. I guess I’m her mentor or whatever.” 

“Mm.” He took a small plate of crab cakes from another passing waiter, who was followed by Babs arriving at the table. She looked great, as usual, the dark green of her dress matching the dark green details on Dick’s tux. As much as they denied it, they were That Couple who out-cuted everyone without trying and it had only gotten more apparent after they eloped a few years back. 

“Hey, I didn’t think you were coming,” she said, snagging one of Dick’s crab cakes. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, a bit. I might be able to go out later.”

“Good, I definitely need you tonight,” she said, lowering her voice. “Something’s going on around the Southeast Port that I’ve been tracking and we need someone on the ground. Cass is already staking it out but it seems like it might be a two-person situation.”

“Is it the thing I told you about the other day?” After I finished barfing up all the awesome takeout Tim had brought home for our anniversary, I had told Babs about what Nell had seen. 

“Possibly, but I can’t be sure right now.” She absently tapped her finger on the table. “Did Damian see anything that day?”

I shook my head. “Not that I know of.” 

“I’ll ask him.” She sighed and leaned back in her wheelchair. “Where is he, by the way?”

“Over there, attempting to woo my assistant,” I said, nodding in their general direction. Nell was really tall, probably around six feet, but Damian was probably just shy of six foot six and it showed when they stood next to one another in a crowd of older, regular-height people. Damian’s hand was on her back as he pointed to some of the things on auction and she definitely didn’t seem to mind it.

Babs followed my gaze. “Oh dear.”

“They’re both teenage hormone factories,” Dick pointed out. “Let them flirt a little to let out some steam.”

“Have Damian and harmless flirting ever gone together?” I thought to the weeks of society pages detailing his short tryst with some wealthy socialite. He refused to tell me the details aside from the fact that they were no longer together and that she had burned up a painting of his, but allegedly Damian had ‘shattered her heart,’ leaving her ‘unlikely to love again.’ The tabloids were pretty ruthless with the whole story, and I sure as hell didn’t want Nell to get torn apart like that.

“True.” Babs sighed, checking one of her multiple phones. This one was a Bat phone, though it looked like an iPhone. She stared it for a few moments, obviously concerned, while my eyes started to wander.

Tim was schmoozing with a couple who had brought their very adorable (and mysteriously well-behaved) five year old daughter, looking very handsome in his suit. He had to do more talking because of his place on the Wayne Foundation board, so usually I just hung out with Babs or Dick at these things. I caught his eye for a second and smiled, and he smiled back. Hopefully he could come sit with us for a while later.

“Damn it,” Babs murmured, texting quickly. “Cass found something that I need to analyze, might be a new lead.” 

“You want me to check it out?” I asked, pushing back from the table a bit.

“Check what out?” Nell asked from right behind me. Damian was at her side, his face a little flushed but calm as usual.

“Um, some of Damian’s art,” I said quickly. “Just wanted to make sure it was ready for later in the night.”

If she hadn’t surprised me, I could have sold the lie a bit better. I was definitely not on my A-game. She paused for a second, almost as if she were suspicious but nodded.

“I can’t wait to see them. Damian told me about his portrait work and it sounds really interesting.” She glanced up at Damian, who looked the slightest bit bashful for a moment before returning to his normal demeanor. “I wish I were artistic.”

“Hey, you’re a pro at arts and crafts,” I said, grinning. “At least you can draw a cat.”

“A cat that looks like a dog.” She snorted.

“Ladies and gentlemen…” Someone said into a microphone on the main stage where the auction caller would eventually stand. “We’re about to start the auction on several big ticket items in the next three or so minutes if you’d like to congregate around the stage.”

We all migrated over to the area in front of the stage, sticking to the back of the crowd because we weren’t going to bid on anything. I could feel a bit of nervous energy coming from Damian, but I wasn’t sure if it was because his art was going up for sale or if it was Nell standing very close to him. 

The first few things that went were a bit smaller—fancy tea sets, spa gift certificates, stuff like that—but then it started to pick up a bit. Eventually Damian’s first painting came up, a large piece. The auctioneer unveiled it.

It was a portrait, as many of his paintings were, this time of Cass in profile. He liked to use watercolors, letting the paint drip to create the subtleties of Cass’s face. The background was a matte black, contrasting the bright reds and pinks of Cass, which he created through stencils or something—he often worked alone without letting anyone else into his studio unless he needed to sketch them, so I didn’t get to see it come together.

“Bidding begins at a thousand dollars.”

The bidding went up quickly, topping out at seven thousand dollars. Nell was the most excited, though I could tell Damian was trying to keep it cool about how pleased he was. He usually worried about people buying it out of pity because he was a Wayne, but in recent auctions, he had the auctioneer stop using his name, only referring to him as a local artist with several works in museums around the region. They still sold just as well.

“That’s incredible, Damian,” Nell said. “Congrats.”

Damian’s thank you was cut off by a sudden screech two feet in front of us. There was a loud thump and the crowd parted revealing the little girl I’d noticed with the couple Tim had been talking to. She was out cold, her skin totally blue.

Dick dove in to help this time, yelling for someone to call 911 while he did CPR. Nell went in too, making sure there was enough space around them while she checked for anything strange. Instead of trying to calm people down, I leaned against Damian, feeling a wave of nausea. He steadied me, standing back from the crowd. 

Soon the paramedics arrived and whisked the child away, her mother hopping into the ambulance and her father going to get the car to follow the ambulance. The crowd looked concerned, unsure if they should continue to party or if they should go home. Nell and Dick were talking a few feet away, Dick seeming ever so slightly stiff, which wasn’t like him. I wanted to eavesdrop, but I also didn’t want to move at all.

“Steph?” Tim appeared at my side, taking Damian’s spot as my resting pole. I wrapped my arms around his middle and breathed in his smell. Freshly dry-cleaned tux and Tim-scent. “You look sick.”

“Still not feeling well. Maybe it’s stress induced.” Which was kind of a bullshit answer considering all the stress I went through, but it was an answer.

“Go get checked out. Tomorrow. Dr. Thompkins can easily fit you in.” He sounded gravely serious, and the slight worry line that was starting to become a permanent feature on his forehead deepened. “This has been going on for a long time and it might be connected to these incidents.”

I hadn’t thought about that, but thinking about it made my stomach turn. “I’ll go. I promise.”

He relaxed a little and kissed my forehead. “Good. Maybe we should head back early so you can rest.”

“I can go home on my own, y’know.” I straightened his tie and brushed off his lapels.

“I know. I just want to go home with you.” He squeezed my arm gently. “I’ll go get the car and call you when I pull up, okay?”

“Mmkay.” I kissed him on the cheek. Despite all the chaos and my general illness, I still felt a little flutter in my chest watching him go.

“Stephanie, can I talk to you?” Nell asked, walking toward me quickly. She took my arm and pulled me to the side, though things were so busy again that no one would have noticed our conversation.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I saw it again.” Her brown eyes were wide. “That weird lightning stuff on that little girl, the same stuff I saw on the boy back at the youth center.”

I swallowed. “Are you s—“

“I’m sure.” She glanced around us. “Something weird is going on. She felt boiling hot and her eyes were moving around behind her closed eyelids when she was passed out. That’s not normal.”

I swallowed again, unsure of what she wanted me to say, or what I should have said. So I gently squeezed her upper arm and said, “The doctors will handle it, Nell. Let Tim and me give you a ride home.”

She almost looked annoyed, which I had never seen before, even when kids were literally hanging off her limbs and screaming. “You don’t think it’s weird?”

“I do think it’s weird, but I’m going to let the doctors handle it,” I said, teetering on the edge of my Business Voice and Regular Steph voice so she would drop it. Babs would handle it, no need for Nell to get involved and get hurt.

“Fine. A ride would be great, thank you.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and started typing a message.

Tim arrived with the car a few moments later and Nell and I piled in. In the dark of the car, I could see the light from her phone in the back seat. From the look of concentration that I caught a glimpse of when the light from outside hit her face, I could tell she wasn’t just texting her friends.


	3. Chapter 3

Dr. Thompkins had cleared a morning appointment for my sake, which she definitely didn’t have to do on such short notice, but judging by how crappy I felt, it was a good idea to rush me in. Tim had to drag me out of bed and drive me over to her office because I was barely making it on my own.

I knew Dr. Thompkins had fixed me in the past, but that still didn’t stop me from nervously picking at the paper on the examination table. 

“Good morning, Steph,” Dr. Thompkins said, coming in with a smile. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah, it’s been a while.” I’d gotten my birth control patch/check up at a different doctor because Dr. Thompkins had been really backed up for a while with new patients.

“Since the wedding?” She grabbed the blood pressure cuff and slipped it over my arm.

“I guess. A whole year, then.”

She paused, listening to my pulse before releasing the pressure of the cuff. “Wow, a whole year already? Congrats.”

She then asked me all the usual questions—why was I here, what were my symptoms?—then all the vigilante ones—had I been exposed to blood/radioactivity/weird waves/horrible science experiments? She checked my throat, ears, and eyes, just in case, and felt my lymph nodes.

“When was your last period?” She asked, grabbing some stuff from a drawer.

“Last month, I think?” My period decided to show up whenever it damn well pleased, usually at the worst time possible and without warning.

“You think?” She turned, holding vials for blood, I assumed.

“It was barely there.”

“Mm.” She might have sounded concerned, but I couldn’t quite tell. “I’ll do your bloodwork and check for any kind of parasites or viruses or anything and give you a pregnancy test.”

“What?” I blurted. “Pregnancy test?”

“Standard procedure—you’ve probably been tested more than you realize.” She took my arm and cleaned off a spot to take my blood. “You’re on the patch, but it’s still possible to get pregnant. Plus your period might have just been spotting, which can happen if you conceive on birth control. And if you need any medication or treatments, it’s good to know beforehand so we can create a treatment plan that’s safe.”

_Oh my god_. “When will I know if I am?”

“I can rush the results and get them to you in a few hours or less.” She took my blood quickly and finished up. “But relax—it could be a number of things.”

I let her finish up her exam and leave before I went into a full on…well, something. It was like all of my emotions were trying to figure out what the hell to do, but couldn’t, so they just decide to flip out inside me. The only thing I did know was that I was annoyed with myself for not even entertaining the idea that I could be knocked up. 

Back when I was fifteen, I immediately went there because we hadn’t used any protection at all (‘it’ll make me closer to you, babe,’ he said. God, I was so naive). But now I had this patch and absolutely none of the symptoms I’d had when I was pregnant the first time. I somehow made it through the early parts of my first pregnancy without morning sickness or a ton of fatigue even though I ate nothing but Hot Pockets, mac n’ cheese, and mashed potatoes, but now I could hardly keep toast down most days.

Shit.

I left her office in a rush, almost on autopilot to the youth center until I realized that I’d called out sick the whole day and didn’t know what to do. I texted Babs and asked if she was at home, which she was along with Cass, and decided to pick up lunch for us. Thankfully I wasn’t nauseated, so I got fancy sandwiches and these awesome chips for the three of us.

The moment I walked into Babs’s headquarters, Cass’s eyes widened.

“You look…” She gave me the once over. I looked really rough, especially considering my inability to put on proper clothes between throwing up, but I guess my body language was giving off a bad vibe too. “…Awful.”

“Yeah, weird morning.” I put the sandwiches down on Babs’ desk. She was still typing away. “I brought food too.”

Babs kept typing a bit before turning. “What’s wrong?”

“Might be pregnant.” No sense in dancing around it.

“What?” They both said.

“I thought you were on the patch,” Babs said, reaching over to grab a sandwich.

“Yeah, I did too, but apparently I’m unable to get pregnant on purpose like a regular married lady.” 

No one said anything for a bit. Cass and I grabbed sandwiches and sat on the floor to eat, mostly out of habit.

“Will you keep the baby if you are pregnant?” Cass finally asked quietly. 

“Of course,” I said, not hesitating. “Tim and I are stable and have enough money. It’s just the matter of all of this vigilante stuff and we were going to wait a few years and even then we were going to talk about it for a while first…”

I put the sandwich down, my stomach turning in knots. Luckily (or unluckily) I probably wouldn’t puke—it was just nerves. I never dreamed that I would possibly be pregnant like this again. I had the whole plan and everything: Tim and I were going to “try” in about three or so years, I was going to stop being Batgirl for a while once I got pregnant, pull back on patrols after that, then up the security times about a billion because like hell would we let anything happen to our kid. 

But now I had to wing it and for once I didn’t embrace the experience. 

“Wait until you get the results back, Steph,” Babs said, gently. “You might not be.”

“Yeah, but then I might have a terrible virus or something.” I dumped some chips into my mouth.

Babs sighed through her nose, pushing her sandwich aside. “Maybe we should talk about this case to get your mind off of this. The fainting kids and the lightning that your assistant allegedly saw.”

“Yeah, what have you found?” I swept crumbs off my legs and got up.

“The two children seem mostly unrelated aside from the fact that they’re kids—the child from the center, Andreas, and the child from the party, Annie, were both under ten years old. I dug through their lives a bit—thank god for parents who decide to put everything on social media—and found that they both like to swim and they’re both big Pokemon fans.

“Haven’t been able to get DNA samples yet, but they’re both in induced comas in their respective hospitals. But Cass found some strange, glowing bacterial growths in one of the parks on the west side where there was some criminal activities the other night. It’s still being tested, but it’s worth investigating.”

“So we don’t know what caused the kids to pass out like that or if it’s even related to that bacteria?” I asked.

“Nope. Next plan of action would be surveillance to see if they go to similar areas, but since the kids are in the hospital, we’ll have to snoop around a bit.” She clicked through a few pictures of the kids. “The parents are still out and about when they aren’t staying with their respective children at the hospital, so we might get someone to do some undercover work.”

“Mm.” I stared at the screens, where Babs had blown up profiles of the kids—ages, schools, allergies, etc. “What about the games? Could it be a technology related thing?”

“Possibly. I was hoping the kids would wake up so I could track their movements through their console’s wifi, but they’re in comas, like I said.” She shrugged. “Until then, we wait and hope that no one else gets hurt. Or we find out that someone else has one of these fits and we can get another lead.”

I sighed and sat on the edge of her desk. Missions were like this a lot of times, but it still kind of sucked. Even with O’s power, she still couldn’t make time go faster. I briefly wondered about how Nell thought she could crack the code without the help of a genius infojock and supercomputers—not in a jerk-ish way, but a legitimate question. 

“Want me to ask Nell what she thinks?” I suddenly said. “She’s been snooping around a bit.”

Babs cleared a screen. “Has she? Maybe I can get into her computer so you won’t have to ask directly.”

I watched as she found Nell’s computer and pulled up a live copy of her screen, feeling weirdly uncomfortable. I’d seen Babs do this to others all the time, but seeing Nell’s personal computer felt more invasive. Nell was on Facebook, shopping for shoes, watching an episode of some reality show, reading her RSS feed and Tumblr, and messaging some friends, all at once. She must have been home; all the kids were on a day trip to a water park so only the most necessary staff were working.

Babs checked her Facebook, which was very tame, her RSS feed for possible leads, and finally, her messages with her friends. Most were weird, inside jokes that I wasn’t surprised by, having also been a teenaged girl, but others were long chains of messages that felt too serious to be mixed with her other ones.

“Ah, here we go.” Babs went through that message chain. “She mentions the kids here and her friend seems to be talking it through with her…”

Her eyes darted quickly back and forth through the messages, faster than I could keep up with. 

“What’s it say?” Cass asked. 

Babs shook her head, clearing another one of her screens. “I’m going to see who this person she’s chatting with is. She seems to trust them a lot.”

“Could be a trap?” I suggested. “For Nell. Maybe it’ll strike her next. Maybe someone got to the kids through their games, but now they’re getting Nell through her computer.”

Babs was quiet for a second. “Possibly. If I could see who the hell it is.”

I looked up at the screen, then back down to her, a furrow forming in her brow. She grabbed a ponytail holder and pulled her silvering hair into a bun. “This person’s computer is locked up tight. Might take me a bit to get into it, unfortunately.”

“Like how long?” Cass asked.

“Not sure.” Babs sighed through her nose. “On the plus side, we might have a lead?”

“True.” I looked at Nell’s original screen, where she was talking to a different friend. They segued from talking about a movie starring some hot new actor who I couldn’t find attractive no matter how many times I saw him, into talking about boys. I felt like an old lady, reading about them flirting with guys and being nervous about it, until something caught my eye.

_I’m talking with him rn_ , Nell said. _We’re going to hang out at his place??_

My pulse suddenly quickened.

_Get it!_ , her friend, whose screenname was NatalieBattley, said. 

I watched the conversation unfold a little more, trying to ignore the ‘get it’ comment, unless ‘get it’ suddenly had different connotations nowadays. I hoped she would talk to him about their plans so we could see which friend she was talking about, but she started fooling around with the shoe website again.

After bookmarking two pairs of flats, she went back to her messages, this time with the person Babs was trying to hack.

_So, tonight?_ The guy asked. His username was Harrow.

_Yep! Your studio, right?_ She replied.

Studio…

_Yes, I’ll be sure to let you up. Excuse me in advance for the mess—I’m working on a new piece._

Oh shit.

“It’s Damian. The guy she’s going to go meet up with is Damian. What the actual hell?” I leaned in close to the screen, wanting to reach into it and ask Damian was the hell he thought he was doing. He knew better than to let outsiders in on mission secrets. From what it looked like, it didn’t seem like he was just pumping her for information. Hopefully it would be just that once I got a closer look at their conversations.

“Well, that explains the heavy duty security on his computer.” Babs leaned back in her chair. “But it means we can ask him about the case instead of having to dig through all of this.”

“But it also means that we’ll have to pry a reason for why he’s helping Nell and not us out of him,” Cass pointed out. 

Babs took off her glasses and ran her hand over her face. “Somehow I have the feeling it has to do with how intensely they were flirting last night. Remind me how I made it through you two as teenagers and early twenty-somethings? Wait, don’t answer that. I barely made it out alive.”

“C’mon, we weren’t _that_ bad,” Cass said, grinning.

Babs put her glasses back on just in time to give us both an incredulous stare over the lenses. “Need I remind of you both of all the times I had to cover for you because you—“

My phone rang, pulling me out of the conversation, and my stomach dropped to the floor. It was Dr. Thompkins’ office.

“Hi, is this Stephanie?” Dr. Thompkins asked.

“Yeah, hi.” I wandered over to the corner, feeling Babs and Cass’s eyes on my back.

“Hi. Just wanted to give you your results. Not everything is here, but good news—you don’t have a horrible virus and your bloodwork was clean.” Somehow that news didn’t calm me down at all. “But you’re definitely pregnant.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! I keep saying that and keep taking forever to update.

When I got home, I found Tim eating takeout straight from the carton, staring blankly into space. I called it his morning stare because he usually stood in the shower or kitchen in the morning with the same look on his face before he got caffeinated. Opie was lying at his feet, waiting for him to miss his mouth and give her some shrimp.

“I’m home,” I said, resting my hand on his lower back and kissing him on the cheek.

“Hey.” His expression momentarily brightened. “What’d Dr. Thompkins say? I thought you were going to text me once you got the results.”

I swallowed and put my bag down. It felt so weirdly easy to tell him back when we were teenagers, but that was probably because it wasn’t his baby. 

“I’m…kind of knocked…up?” I said, so eloquently.

He put his food carton down, his eyes widening. “Like…”

“Pregnant.”

“Yeah.”

“With a baby.” 

“Our baby.” He blinked several times in a row and put his hand flat on the counter like it was the only thing keeping him upright. “I was getting mentally prepared for the worst news ever but this…”

“Good?” I murmured.

“Great.” He pulled me into a deep kiss, then a hug. “Steph, you’re pregnant.”

“I know, Dork Wonder. I’ve been puking for weeks.” I wrapped my arms around him, not being able to resist a smile.

“We’re going to be parents.” He pulled away from me, holding my shoulders and staring, his eyes bright. I almost thought he was going to say something but instead he kissed me on the forehead and looped his arms around me again, picking me up and twirling us around for a second, making me laugh. I could feel his heart pounding against my chest.

After a long pause and a few more kisses, he said, “Not that I’m not ecstatic, but this…we didn’t really plan this. We’re going to have to change a lot of things.”

“I know.” I ran my knuckles up and down his back.

“We should have a family meeting to discuss our plans.” He let go of me and went to grab his phone. 

“When? Now?” 

“Well, yeah. Tonight, if we can.” His brows furrowed a bit. “You can’t go out on patrol while you’re pregnant, Steph. That’d be too risky. We need someone to cover your patrol areas and we need to figure out what to do when the baby’s born…what I’ll do…safety measures, added security, stuff like that.”

I suddenly needed to sit down, feeling overwhelmed and slightly out of breath. Bat family meetings were usually…interesting, to say the least. We normally only had them when something major was going on, and everyone usually disagreed on something or other. Things didn’t come to blows most of the time. At least Babs usually brought coffee and donuts. 

—

My stomach was half in knots, half filled with butterflies, and from the looks of it, everyone was mostly just as worried as I was because Tim hadn’t disclosed why we needed to have the meeting in the first place. We were mostly waiting for Damian to arrive so we could start—Bruce, Dick, Babs, and Cass were here already. Jason was in Bludhaven, not that he was keen on these family meetings anyway. Damian was rarely ever late to Bat-related business, even when he was out partying or doing whatever super rich heirs did to distract the public from the fact that they were also vigilantes by night.

We sat around a short conference table in the cave, Babs’s donuts in the middle and a big container of coffee flanking it. I dug into a donut, watching everyone sit around, uneasy, aside from Bruce, who was calm as usual. 

“We should just start without Damian,” Bruce said, sounding irritated.

“Want me to call him again?” Dick asked.

“No need.” Damian came in, his dogs Titus and Peter on his heels. Titus, the great dane, trotted over to his bed in the corner, while Peter, who was a mix of so many breeds that he could only be described as a generic dog, excitedly sniffed everyone, tail wagging. Even as I gave Peter a few head scratches before he moved on to greet Cass, I noticed Damian looking a little rough—shirt a little ruffled, his wavy hair sticking up in the back. Plus he had an extremely annoyed look across his face, which he punctuated by flopping down in his chair somewhat dramatically and glaring at Bruce.

Bruce’s features tensed for a second before he stood. Despite all the progress he and Damian had made over the years, they still had a lot of moments like this. I wondered what had made Damian pissed off at him this time. Maybe they had gone on patrol together, which sometimes ended up badly. Damian and Dick were much better partners, working together without a single hitch or fight. Amazing what talking to a kid and treating his feelings as valid could do to a relationship. 

“Tim, want to start?” Bruce asked. Tim nudged me. 

“Oh, right. Well, we called the meeting to rearrange some patrols. I’m pregnant, so I can’t really go out anymore,” I said.

Everyone congratulated us, especially Dick, who called dibs on being the godfather. I guess Babs and Cass hadn’t told him between the time we all found out and the meeting. We rearranged our patrol areas without much of a fuss, putting Tim in the areas with the least amount of activity just in case. I was now officially Babs’s wing-lady in her headquarters until further notice. Even though the reorganization process was fairly smooth, things were spread a little thin. Still manageable, though.

“Now that that’s out of the way, could we discuss a case Steph, Cass, and I have been following?” Babs asked, pulling out her laptop. “It might be bigger than we can handle without everyone involved.”

She hooked up her screen to the projector and turned it on. The images and information we had been looking at earlier, plus a picture of Nell and her info. Damian’s expression didn’t change at all, even as Babs gave us the rundown of the situation. Apparently the bacteria Cass had found was actually a problem—it had the potential to amplify certain qualities of other bacteria, meaning it could possibly do the same to people.

“We need to find other samples of the bacteria, possibly near where the two children hung out. And we also need to subtly talk to Nell more about what she saw or hack her computer again,” Babs said, zooming in on Nell and looking over at Damian.

“I know you’ve already checked my computer because of our conversation,” Damian said, sounding bored. He was stroking Peter’s head under the table, the thump of his wagging tail against Dick’s chair filling the room.

“Care to explain why you’re discussing a case with Nell, then?” I asked, wanting to tack on something about Nell ‘getting it’ with him, but I figured that wouldn’t be appropriate.

“She brought it up first. I just wanted to talk to her about whatever, but she wanted to talk about that.” He shrugged. “That’s all. I didn’t realize it was a case yet. Glad to know you’re keeping everyone in know, Brown.”

I twitched, hearing my maiden name. The very first thing I did after Tim and I got married was change my last name to Drake-Wayne like his, but still, Damian held onto calling me Brown whenever it suited his temperament. 

“You’re going to have to stop talking to her about it,” Bruce said.

“I know,” Damian shot back.

“Do you?” Bruce asked, his eyes going even colder than I thought was possible. “I understand your desire to connect with girls your age, but prioritizing her over your duties over them—“

“We were just hanging out, for Christ’s sake. It was a casual date,” Damian said. Peter’s tail wagging stopped. “I apologize for not teleporting over here and leaving Nell stranded. I suppose that would make me too much like you and we both know that isn’t possible according to your standards.”

“That’s enough, Damian.”

“ _That_?” Damian sneered. “I’ve barely begun.” 

“ _Enough_.” Bruce gripped the edge of the table, glaring at his son, who glared right back without breaking eye contact. Oddly enough, they looked more alike in this moment than usual—the square jaws, the clear blue eyes, the thick, dark eyebrows.

“D, let’s go cool off outside,” Dick murmured, gently pulling on his sleeve. Damian tensed for a second before he pushed back from the table and followed Dick to the next room. The tension lowered immediately and Peter went back to wagging his tail.

—

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Nell asked the next day while we were going through some applications for a special after school program we were starting. “You look a lot less ill.”

“Better.” Probably because I had gotten nine whole hours of sleep. This whole no-patrol thing was pretty sweet so far. “How was your day off?”

She smiled, then bit her bottom lip. “It was good.”

“Really? What’d you do?” I asked. I almost felt bad for taking advantage of our bond, but I probably would have asked this anyway if I hadn’t known about her hanging out with Damian.

“I sat around, mostly.” She shrugged. “And hung out a little with Damian.”

“Oh, really?” I grinned.

Her smile turned a little bashful as she told me all about it. She met Damian at his studio, where he showed her around a little and they talked about his art, then they went to a cafe with two of his dogs (Peter and Titus, I guessed). They talked more about absolutely everything (which I doubted, unless Damian spilled the beans about the whole Batman thing, which he never would) and went for a walk in the park, even holding hands.

“So it was a date?” I blurted, busying myself with stacking some papers.  A little warning bell went off in the back of my mind and no matter how much I tried to hush it, it kept ringing. Damian was definitely more social than he used to be, but he was still guarded when it came to making friends. I guess it came with the territory—a lot of people wanted to get close to billionaires for the perks or close to vigilantes to y’know, kill them. But he wouldn’t toy with Nell’s emotions just to get in her pants or something, would he? From the stars in her eyes when she talked about him, he could probably just get her alone and they would be on each other like rabbits. 

“Not really? I mean, he just invited me to hang out, but we were alone. And I kissed him and he definitely didn’t mind.” She also started busying herself with papers, turning away from me. “I guess it would have been more of a date if his dad hadn’t called him for some meeting.”

At least that explained the weird tension between him and Bruce.

“But like,” She continued, stopping her sorting and looking off into space. “…I’m bad at dating, so I don’t know what to do to keep going out with him.”

She looked at me, expectant. “Oh. _Oh_ , um…I’m terrible with dating advice, honestly.”

“How did you and Tim meet, then?” She handed me some papers.

Oh, I hit him with a brick while we were out defending Gotham as vigilantes. As you do. “Uh, y’know, through friends and stuff. We dated as teenagers and reconnected when I was in college.”

“Mm.” She nodded. “So I should just keep talking to him? He just seems so much more mature than other guys our age. More…experienced. I can’t rely on texting hearts and stuff to him or liking his statuses on Facebook until he remembers I exist.” 

I quickly tried to erase the memory of the hungry look in her eyes when she said ‘experienced.’ Nope, nope, nope, not going there. “Just be yourself, Nell. You’re great and any guy would be lucky to have you.”

She beamed. “I hope this works out. Guys can be the worst, y’know?”

“Oh, I totally know.” I shoved the papers into a file and excused myself to the bathroom. He could probably keep her mind off the case, but god help me, if Damian messed with Nell I would rip him a new one. 


	5. Chapter 5

The only thing that was better than being greeted in the morning with sex was being greeted in the morning with bacon. For once I didn’t hate my abruptly acute sense of smell because I could smell it from across the apartment. Judging from the intensity of the sun beaming into the room, it was already the afternoon—no big deal, it was Saturday. Tim had probably come back from running errands and whatnot since he always managed to get up earlier than me on the weekends. Not that it was hard now that I was exhausted all the time.

I slipped out of bed and wandered to the kitchen, smelling toasted bagels as I got closer.

“Babe, how did you know I was craving bacon?” I asked before rounding the corner and realizing that Damian was in my kitchen, acting like he owned the place. Tim was nowhere to be found, but Opie was on her back on the floor, playing with a toy I didn’t recognize. “Uh, why are you making bacon in my kitchen? How did you get in here?”

He looked over his shoulder, putting some bacon on a paper towel to drain off the excess grease. He was even wearing an apron. “Drake let me in. Several hours ago, I might add. I didn’t anticipate waiting until one in the afternoon for you to drag yourself out of bed, so I decided to start cooking. Just as I suspected, the scent of food pulled you out of your apparent coma.”

I rolled my eyes. “What if I had been naked?”

“I’ve dealt with temporary blindness in the past.”

I rolled my eyes again, opening the fridge. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you making bacon in my kitchen? What do you need from me?”

“Why are you assuming that I need a favor?” He turned off the stove and opened the oven, pulling out a cookie sheet with warm bagels on it. There were already little jars of preserves and empty teacups on the table.

“Because you’re making bacon and heating up fresh bagels in my kitchen for no clear reason.” I grabbed some iced herbal tea and brought it to the table. 

He didn’t say anything for a minute, until he brought the bagels and bacon over to the table. “I needed to debrief you. Barbara’s busy, so I decided to do her a favor.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. He was still putting up a front, obviously, but I just let it go for now and took a bagel. 

“Okay, debrief me. What went on last night?” I had planned to go to Babs’s after a nap, but then, after inhaling a second dinner and getting sucked into this ridiculous TV movie, I passed back out on the couch around midnight. Tim must have carried me to bed, as he did so often that I didn’t wake up disoriented anymore.

Damian reached into his fancy leather backpack, which was hanging on the back of one of the chairs, and pulled out his tablet. After pulling up a file, he slid it to me. 

“This Youtube video appeared late yesterday afternoon.” He pressed play, and I watched.

It was a kid, probably around Damian’s age or a little younger judging by the look of him, sitting in his room at his desk. He closed his eyes and everything in his room floated in the air for a second. A cut, then he was in his living room holding a bunch of kitchen knives. He tossed them all at a tree outside with perfect accuracy. Another cut, he lit a small microwave dinner on fire, his skin flickering bright blue. And on, and on.

“And none of it is fake from what we’ve evaluated.” Damian took back his tablet. “He lives in the area where that other bacteria has been found, so we’re assuming it’s that.”

And, as Cass and I had found out from samples of the coma kids’s toys and clothes, they had been exposed to that bacteria too. We still weren’t sure where they had been exposed originally, or why there hadn’t been more infections reported.

I paused. “So it’s possible that the kids in the coma and this kid have been infected by the same thing? Like how a couple drinks won’t hurt an adult but they might send a kid to the hospital?”

“Basically. I’m going to investigate further in person. The guy—Devon Finch—is a high school senior at one of the top ranked public schools in Gotham, so I can create some bullshit story about a small endowment based on their excellence to get in to talk to him and throw them a quarter million or something down the line.”

Y’know, like a quarter million dollars was pocket change.

“What do I need to do?” I asked.

He paused. “Just help Barbara when needed.”

I slathered jelly on the other half of my bagel. “So, nothing basically.”

“Well it’s not like you can go out in the field in your state.” He gestured vaguely at my stomach, which still looked the same.

“I’m pregnant, not a vegetable. I can contribute _something_.” I bit into the bagel angrily and got jelly all over my chin. Not quite the look I was going for. “Whatever, I’ll talk to Babs about it later. She’s gotta let go of the reins a little bit sometime.”

Damian sighed and tapped his thumb on the handle of one of the empty teacups absently. He had a long scratch down the side of his arm, all the way down to his thumb, which was unusual for him. He usually didn’t go out with wounds and used all the fancy surface wound healing salves that Tim and Babs had developed. He looked kind of rumpled too, like he did at the meeting a few weeks back.

“Do you want tea or something?” I asked, finally. “You look a little tired.”

He just nodded, still playing with the tea cup. Damian wasn’t big on expression—who would be if half their genes came from Bruce?—so I could tell that he was trying his hardest to look comfortable, even though he was failing. For a trained assassin and all around master of stealth, I could read him like a book when he was like this. If he was coming to me rather than Dick, which happened so rarely that I could count all the instances on one hand, he had to be desperate.

I brought him the tea (in a happy face mug) and just waited. He sipped the tea for a moment before clearing his throat.

“Can I ask you something?” He put the tea down.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Does Nell like me?” He asked quietly.

And it was one of those moments when my heart broke for him, which I could unfortunately count on both hands and feet. Gone was the usual confidence in his voice and the natural armor he had up at all times. He was just a regular teenage boy for once, and it was a little strange to see even though I’d seen it before.

“Yeah, from the conversations I’ve had with her she seems completely into you, why?”

He shrugged, then straightened up. “I don’t understand her.”

“She’s a pretty straightforward girl.” Well, in that she wasn’t afraid to set things straight when people stepped out of line.

“So how do I…” He gave a vague gesture. “You know.”

“How do you…?”

“Proceed with the relationship.” And there was that Damian edge again. “I’m not used to this. You know, actually wanting to get to know a girl rather than just sleep with her and move on, considering our business.”

“ _Oh_.” Hm. “It’s hard keeping your identity under wraps when it’s such a big part of you.”

“Which is exactly my problem. I feel like she doesn’t want to go on dates anymore because I have nothing to talk about when it comes to my own life. Everything is related to me being Robin, so I come across as some bland rich kid.”

“Talk about your art or TV or something. Talk about the family in vague terms. We do normal stuff sometimes.” Like have movie nights that get interrupted when we have to wrangle prisoners back into Arkham Asylum, but still. 

He swirled his tea around and stared at the inside of the mug, probably disapproving of the little bits of tea that always escaped the bag and settled at the last sips. “From what Grayson has told me, relationships require a deeper intimacy to last, yes?“

“Woah now, you’ve been hanging out with her for a month and a half, tops, right?” I blurted. For whatever reason, it felt weird having this conversation with Damian. Not that I doubted he could emote when tensions got high—trust me, I had been on the wrong end of his outbursts several times—but seeing him all lovey-dovey was just…weird. Like he was anyone else but Damian. He existed in this weird realm of Bat-ness for me, and that generally produced only instability and relationships built on sex (with exceptions, obviously). Not once had I imagined him falling for anyone seriously, especially taking in his long list of model-y dates and micro-relationships into account—like father, like son in that regard at least.

His brows furrowed even more, more out of annoyance than anything. “But she’s not at all like any of the other women I’ve dated. She’s so intelligent and witty and doesn’t mind my ‘moods’ as you so politely call them.”

Ho boy. “Damian, relationships are complicated, y’know? Sometimes you just have to take it as it comes and not push it. She might be a little distanced because she’s busy, not because she’s not interested, because the last time I checked she was into you.”

“And that’s exactly what Dick told me.” He obviously wasn’t pleased with this answer. 

“Well, he’s not wrong.”

He gave me a stony glare. “Thanks.”

“You asked.”

“I’m going to ask her to dinner tomorrow night.” He got up and . “Is that ‘taking it as it comes’?”

“What kind of dinner?”

He stared at me like I was crazy. “Food? That restaurant that just opened downtown, James Beard Award winning—“

“Too much, she’s not that fancy.”

He looked like he was moments from knifing me. “You want me to take her to McDonald’s, then?”

“Somewhere in between five star restaurant and there.” I hopped up and got some bacon. “Or cook for her, if she’s cool with that.”

“Hm.” He took some bacon too. “I’ll think about it.”

I patted him on the arm. “Just don’t break her heart or I’ll make your life a living hell.”

——

“Cute? Yes or no, for like a day thing.” Nell asked me the next week while we were eating lunch, taking a moment of reprieve away from the noise. She turned her laptop toward me, showing me a casual dress.

I looked up from my own laptop, where I was fiddling around on a news site, trying to distract myself from replaying Tim getting the crap beaten out of him last night in my mind. And I had to see it happen. Luckily he got out of the situation, but it was a thousand times worse to watch when I wasn’t right there on the field. “What? Yeah, it’s adorable. Why?”

“Dunno, just window shopping I guess.” She turned the laptop back toward her and went back to her lunch. A few moments later, she showed me something else. “Are these ugly?”

They were heels, and well…they were kind of ugly. “They’re not…too bad?”

An alert popped up from her Facebook tab—new _message from: Devon Finch_ — and I had to do everything within my power not to visibly react.

Nell snorted. “No need to lie, I can tell you hate them by the look on your face. My cousin sent me a link to them and her taste is always kind of sketchy.”

“Mmhm.” I immediately opened our secure browser to contact Babs. 

_Babs — Nell’s in contact with the kid from the video Damian showed me, check her computer again ASAP. And check Damian’s again too._

Babs messaged back right away: _A little caught up right now— what level of emergency do you think this is?_

I paused, glancing up at Nell, who was now furiously typing. _Could be a coincidence._

Another long pause. _I’ll put it on my to-do list for later._

I bit my lower lip and closed the browser. Babs’s to-do list was notoriously long and unwieldy, so that pretty much didn’t mean anything. But then I saw a good way to finally take a hold of something again.

“Have you seen this video?” I asked Nell, pulling up the Devon video. I turned it toward her so she could watch  “It’s so crazy.”

“Oh, yeah. He went to my high school—or does.” She didn’t seem too impressed. “Weird, but nice.”

“Mm.” I turned the computer back toward me. “Do you think the video’s fake?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

I quietly sighed. I got absolutely nothing from her expression, but knowing that he went to Nell’s old high school was a good start. If Babs didn’t have the time to, I could get a head start.


End file.
